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Archive for the ‘weight loss/gain’ Category

Gratuitous Grandchild Photos

Wednesday, April 9th, 2008

This afternoon, I was finally going to get down to the studio to do some work. Then, these wonderful beings showed up.

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They get out of school early on Wednesday so their mom brought them over for a visit and to take possession of her birthday present, a new lens for her camera.

After a snack of apple champagne, molasses cookies and almonds, we enjoyed some time in the front yard. It was not the greatest weather, but nice enough to do some chalk drawings and hang out with Grandma.

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Mia drew this kitten:

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Miles drew this International Don’t sign for girls!! Argh – he is that age.

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Maggie loves when they come over, but she is getting so old, she can hardly keep up with them. She is wondering which direction they went! Notice the lovely Portland film of moss.

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I had a good weigh-in day at WW. I was down 1.2 pounds and I feel that I am in control of this again. Whew!!

Thursday This and That

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

I realized, today, that I have not reported on my weight loss/gain in two weeks. Last week, I skipped my meeting. And you know how my week was with family visiting, eating out and cooking. So it should be no surprise that I have not lost weight in a couple of weeks. I was about to give it up, but at the meeting yesterday, I struck up a conversation with a woman, about my age, who has lost 80+ pounds. She told me that she often went weeks without losing, but stuck to it and would then see a big drop. Her story inspired me to hang in and keep working at it. I feel as if I am back on track, now. Besides, I seem to be losing inches even thought I am not losing pounds.

Here is a photo of Kyoto Collage II in it’s new home, in Virginia. The owner loves all things Japanese and saw my collages done with Japanese fabric on my website and asked me to make one for her.

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Here is a close-up:

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Doesn’t it look right at home?

I have finally gotten things back in order on the home front. Maryama came yesterday and the house is neat and tidy. The laundry is done. The bills are paid. Today, I got my studio back in order, ready for my next project.

We have met with two contractors about our bathroom/closet renovation. We have two more to meet with next week. We have no idea how soon the demo and work will start, but we are getting excited. We have the sinks selected. Our next job is to select tile. I am going to try to remember to take my camera when we do the tile search. I am in love with the colors and combinations. It is like being in a candy store.

Tomorrow the rain comes again, after some gloriously sunny days.

Brain Dead

Thursday, February 28th, 2008

I have spent the last two days doing homework for Lizzie’s class and spending a lot of time with SDA website stuff. Tonight, I worked for 2 hours trying to do a simple bit of homework for the class, and I have a pile of fused, cut up bits of fabric, none of which is working for me.

So I thought I would check in on the blog and then get a good night’s sleep. I lost enough weight this week to be at a new low at WW. It is pretty darn slow on the scale, but I think I am about ready to move in to a smaller size. I want to lose 10 more pounds before our trip in May.

Here are a some pieces that I did for Liz’s class. for this first piece, we had to take one of our small designs and redo it as a larger piece with a good focal point.

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Then, we were to do 3 pieces in a circle, square and rectangle with good placement of elements and a focal point. Tonight, I got hung up on the rectangle.

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I quilted the round one. It has some of my complex cloth as the background. The square has some fused scraps that I got from Mrs. Mel a long time ago. I am still having fun with those scraps when I make postcards.

Liz has not critiqued these so I don’t know if I got a pass or a fail on these.

Re-finishing Quilts

Wednesday, February 20th, 2008

The sun has been out. The plants are blooming. The pollen is in the air. I am trying very hard to keep the darn sinuses under control which means going back on meds and daily saline rinses. That being said, my weight was up .4 on a pound due to a Sudafed bump in water retention. I know – excuses, excuses.

I did some remedial work on a couple of quilts this week so that I can enter them in a quilt show. Here is a thumbnail of how it originally looked. You can click to see it larger.

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I changed the name from Fragments to Fragments of a Life. I added the cheesecloth to tame some of the painted areas.

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I mounted the piece, Passages, on black velvet on stretcher bars.

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A couple of you asked how I got rid of the branch on the Moonlit Aspen by using my skinny little scissors and snipping it off. That whole little quilt was completely hand stitched so it was pretty easy to snip away the unwanted part.

Lizzie has given me permission to share some of my work from the class so I will upload some of the compositions later this week. Tomorrow will be devoted to catching up with my homework for this week.

I am watching Project Runway and getting such a kick out of the reunion show.

Wednesday Potpourri

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

First, some eye candy. Look at this gorgeous fabric that has been arriving. I am working on a commission piece that will be a collage of vintage Japanese fabrics with reds and yellows as the main color theme.

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Next, I just had to share this delightful e-mail that I received through my website contact form. It really made my day!! I disguised her name, but she is from Scotland.

Just found your blog and website whilst trying to find a reason why after 10 years doing a proper job I can’t get my procien dyes beyond the level of wishy washy! I’m not a blogger-haven’t got any idea what its about, but thought this woman thinks a bit like me when I meandered facsinated around your website-I hope I haven’t got completely lost here-I am talking to the lady who has a bottle of pinot gringio in amongst the threads-aren’t I?
Anyway, I’ll work the recipe out, I always work stuff out or remember in the end, I’ll have multi coloured fingers for a while but I’ll get there. I just wanted to e-mail you and say its nice to know that I’m not the only middle aged woman who finds fibre, colour, and cotton wrapped round the vacuum cleaner exciting, in fact more exciting than most things except homeless people, running, chocolate, cats and maybe that other thing that people do when they’ve got time!

Be interesting to hear from you-great site.

Rxxxxx

P.s I’m a lapsed textile designer, batik in particular, but the ex-husband wanted ‘stuff’ and I meekly responded by getting a proper job. I’m now divorced-yeehaa! Liberated and making my way back to my creative soul-and for the first time in over ten years re-discovering textile, colour, design, dyes, cloth, beads and art! What a relief, I thought I’d lost not only passion but even interest forever-but its back!

Fatima, on the other hand, is making our lives a living nightmare. Someone, or some robotic Internet form filler, is using the name Fatima and our phone number to apply for every loan and mortgage available on line. In fact, I got one message that she was pre-approved for a business loan of $270,000. The calls have been coming about once an hour on average for two days. A live person that I talked to says that people often use a fictitious phone number so that they won’t get phone calls. I have taken to answering the phone with, ” Fatima does not live here. Don’t ever call here again!”

On the weight loss front, I lost almost 2 pounds today. I am at a new low weight. I think it is because I gave up cheese for Lent. I can’t wait for Sundays, when I can break my fast and have a little cheese, yum!

The big news is that I finished the Art Cloth. I produced a computer journal of my process with photos — it was burned to a CD and all will be overnighted to San Antonio tomorrow. I am really happy with my final result.

Tomorrow is STASH meeting. We are going to meet at Terry’s new house and get a tour of the estate, then out to lunch. It will be a lovely day. Mr C is taking me out for Lover’s Day tomorrow night. If I am not careful, I will gain the 2 pounds back!

And Liz, if you are reading this, I am so behind on my week 4 homework!!

Happy Heart’s Day to all my blogger friends. I really do love you!